Scandinavian Heartstrings, in Drop D.

Chapter 5.1 Father freak-out

They had arrived home in the small hours of the morning with Charles, Dr. Twinkletits and two medical hoods as their welcome party. Dried blood cracked like desert sand all over Toki's front as he exited the Dethbus ahead of the others. Twinkletits frantically whispered something to Charles then something to the medical hood holding a wheelchair in front of them. The rest of the band watched from the safety of the doorway as the therapist beckoned Toki over with his prosthetic hand, then, when Toki was standing right in front of him he whipped out a syringe filled with medical-calm-down-juice and stuck it into his neck. Toki was zonked out before he could protest, and the hoods guided his fall into the wheelchair before rolling him away.

Skwisgaar tossed and turned in his bed for hours. He couldn't stop thinking about Toki's brutal attack on that guy in Los Angeles. Around mid-morning he decided that the only way to get it out of his head was to get it onto paper. Conte pastels glided across the pages of his sketchbook, sketching out his angst. Depictions of Toki, ripping like an animal into that straight-edger, of him sitting alone in the dark, of his piercing blue eyes looking at him, straight out of the page. He hoped that this had been a one-time thing. He couldn't bear to see Toki like that again, or for Toki to see him.

He lit a Marlboro in his fingers covered predominately in red Conte crayon and flicked through his sketchbook. There were portraits of the other band members in there; Nathan looking intensely at the soundboard, Pickles passed out on a Hawaiian beach, even Murderface trying to peek into the ladies' pool at a Japanese Onsen. But it was mostly filled with sketches of nude women. His groupies always seemed more eager for him to draw them than to screw them! Women were mysterious like that.

He thumbed the pages and an image of a black haired girl with purple highlights fell into view. He turned the pages carefully. Each sketch had her in another position on his bed. One kneeling with a pillow clutched to her breasts. One with her body cascading over the side, head first, so her shoulder length hair almost touched the floor. Another with her holding his guitar as if it were him, a soft smile on her berry lips. He snapped the Sketchbook shut and tossed it to the other side of his bed, rubbing his eyes with his less crayon-stained fingers.

It was afternoon now and he still hadn't had a coffee. As he came down the stairs, idiotic noises blasted at him from the lounge room TV. Toki was laying sideways on the couch watching his weird Japanese cartoons.

Skwisgaar approached him cautiously. "Heij." He said.

"Hei." Toki replied faintly without looking up.

"So, ah, where is everyone?" Skwisgaar asked trying to ignore the elephant in the room.

"Kitchen." Toki said, emotionless.

"Oh, Okay." He ended weakly. At least this was an improvement from last night.

Nathan and Murderface sat with burritos at the haus kitchen table and nodded at Skwisgaar in greeting when he came in.

"So Toki ams better today, den?" Skwisgaar asked when Nathan no longer had a full mouth.

"Kind of. He's still not talking to anyone." Nathan said and shook more Tabasco onto his food.

"Huh? But he talks to me just nows?" Skwisgaar gave him a questioning look.

Murderface said something indignant through a mouthful of refried beans, annoyed that Toki had chosen to talk to Skwisgaar of all fucking people, over him.

"In Snow Speak?" Nathan asked, equally annoyed. Skwisgaar nodded. He tapped his burrito in thought. "Then maybe you can find out what the hell is going on. Pickles and me think he should be on fucking anti-psychotics or something. I mean, you were there, you saw that shit and now he's all..." Nathan looked down at the table. "I just can't stand seeing him like this, you know?"